GALACTICA

So goes the voiceover at the beginning of the earlier episodes of Battlestar Galactica. "The Young Lords", an episode where Starbuck is stranded on a planet, is the last one to have the voiceover. Beginning with "The Living Legend", the voiceover is gone.

First of all, I think it's a good thing that the voiceover was removed before "The War of the Gods", because in that episode, Patrick Macnee, the very same actor whose voice was used for the voiceover, played Count Iblis who we are led to believe is the Devil himself. It would have been quite confusing otherwise.

Although I have to admit that I wasn't confused watching the first episode, "Saga of a Star World", in which Patrick Macnee's voice was used not only for the voiceover, but also as the voice of the Cylon Imperious Leader. It was Baltar himself who first brought this to my attention in "The War of the Gods", where he recognizes Count Iblis' voice. This clever tie-in with the first episode of the series helps to reinforce the idea that the Cylons are evil. Satan himself was involved in their creation.

Strangely, the voiceover appeared again in the second to last episode of the series, "Take the Celestra."

Besides the issue of Patrick Macnee's multiple personalities, the other reason why I think they did the right thing by removing this opening voiceover is because it took up too much time and it didn't really add much after we had already heard it nine times. The best part of the opening is the great orchestral music and the images of the spaceships, so this is what was focused on after the voiceover was removed.

One thing that might be noted about the opening message are the themes from Erich Von Daniken's book Chariots of the Gods, which I remember reading when I was a kid, so I thought the tie-in was quite cool back then. The Chariots of the Gods theme manifests more directly in the "War of the Gods" episode when Commander Adama explains how primitive beings might think that the Colonials aboard the Galactica were gods because of their inability to comprehend the advanced Colonial technology. It's these mystic and religious themes that are missing from the mediocre re-imagining that appeared recently on the Sci Fi Channel.

Those who have viewed the varoius special features on the DVDs will be aware that I haven't said anything that original here. They talk about Patrick Macnee's voice quite a bit, and Glen Larson mentions Chariots of the Gods a few times as well.